Ella Gudwin is President of VisionSpring where she heads up global operations that are accelerating the uptake of eyeglasses among consumers who earn less than $4 a day as a means to improve income earning potential, academic achievement, and quality of life. Under her leadership, VisionSpring is scaling operations to distribute 10 million pairs of eyeglasses to low income consumers by 2020, creating $2.16 billion in economic impact.
Gudwin joined VisionSpring in 2015 with extensive experience in global health and emergency response. She previously served as Senior Vice President of Strategy and Program Development at AmeriCares. During her almost nine years with the organization, she launched programs to improve health outcomes in the areas of diabetes and cardiovascular disease, infection control, pediatric nutrition, breast cancer, and emergency preparedness; and developed strategies for delivering more than $500 million annually in quality medical products and relief supplies to a network of 3,000 health care institutions around the world. In prior roles she led humanitarian operations as Vice President of Emergency Response, including for the 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami, and managed health-related collaborations in ten countries as Director of Asia and Eurasia partnerships.
In earlier roles, Gudwin served as Head of Foreign Government Relations at the Population Council, focused on reproductive health, youth and poverty. She also lived in Indonesia for three years where she taught at the University of Sanata Dharmaas as a Maguire Fellow and conducted research with the World Bank. Gudwin co-founded the Haiti Adolescent Girls Network following the 2010 earthquake, and serves on the board of Project Rhythm. She earned an MA with distinction in international economics and Southeast Asia studies at the School for Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and a BA with honors in sociology from Vassar College. Gudwin is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.